Interview: Andrew Gowers, Financial Times (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
ANDREW Gowers may have saved £230 million last week. Much to his relief, a High Court judge threw out a claim by the City brokerage Collins Stewart Tullett that Gowers's newspaper, the Financial Times, could be liable for knocking a vast hole in its share price. It was, Gowers wants the world to know, "a completely trumped-up and nonsensical figure", that the judge dismissed as "unreasonable, irrational and circular … And now that figure has simply been wiped off the face of the Earth."
Gowers, 47, could use some good news at the moment. The FT has had a tough time since he became editor three years ago. It still faces a damaging libel action over allegations it reported by a former employee at the brokerage, James Middleweek - litigation Gowers dismisses as "vexatious, distracting and ultimately wrongheaded".
Worse, in Britain the paper's circulation is falling: full-price circulation is barely 100,000, and those figures are skewed by a healthy Saturday sale of 170,000, which suggests weekday sales are significantly lower than the headline figure. The paper's losses - £23 million last year, £32 million the year before - have prompted renewed speculation that Pearson, its owner, wants to sell.
Critics say that slippage is symptomatic of an erosion of the City's trust in the paper. It has been accused of moving too far from its traditional business focus ( Gowers's background is in foreign news) and of missing big stories as a result. The paper's editorial strategy has looked confused, just as The Times has boosted its own business coverage in direct competition. Eighteen months after adding a sports page, the FT has now dropped it to focus more narrowly on business. But Gowers dismisses suggestions that the FT has diversified away from its City focus: "Business lies at the heart of what we're about," he says, sitting in his office by Southwark Bridge. He has added a small-companies page, increased signposting "to show that the FT means business", and put in features such as a markets gossip column.
The paper also recently added Australia to its 23 global print sites, which leads Gowers to point out that 70 per cent of copies are sold abroad. "There may be an adjustment process required in some readers' minds in the UK. We are a global business newspaper aiming to provide the best coverage and analysis of business issues, and we are also a national business newspaper in the UK."
Nevertheless, some in the City say Gowers is more interested in quirky features than breaking stories. Not so, he retorts. "We've got so many exclusives everywhere. So confident are we about them that often we don't even put them on the front page."
Why, then, did they let The New York Times lead the way on Shell, surely a quintessential FT story? "Let's be honest, everybody flagellated themselves because The New York Times got to Shell first, but we were ahead on just about every other aspect of the story," he says.
So where are the FT's own big scoops? "Every edition is chockfull of exclusives other people are kicking themselves they don't have." Such as? "The Eliot Spitzer investigation into the US investment banks. M&S, we led the pack. WMD, the Libya-Pakistan connections ..." But WMD is hardly the sort of story the City is desperate for. "People running companies need to know how dangerous the world is, without spin and with real authority," he replies.
Yet some in the City still believe that the FT no longer speaks up for business the way it once did. Where are its great campaigns on red tape? Where is its robust defence of wealth creation? Gowers is unrepentant. "We have never been the cheeky newspaper campaigning for British small business. That's not part of our genetic makeup. I could draw you the dummy of a newspaper for the UK - it would be fearlessly anti-European, reflexively critical of any regulation or Government action, battling for smaller businessmen - but that's not the FT."
COULD that stance be partly because of the FT's friendliness towards the Government? "We are not beholden to any political party," Gowers insists. "Our reporting aims to be close to the Government to the extent that we want to learn what it is planning, and we do, generally, before anyone else. As for comment, we carry a wide range of views. We've been extremely critical of the coalition to invade Iraq. Gordon Brown is not always enormously pleased with what we say."
Still, critics argue that the FT no longer has the great voices that the City once so respected. Who are the great columnists at the paper whom the City now relies on? "I don't know where you're hearing that from, but it's an astonishing comment," says Gowers. "Martin Dickson in the Lombard column; Martin Wolf, who is the best writer on global markets in the world; John Kay, John Plender, a great forensic accountant; Philip Stephens, who can write about politics with real, reported authority ... I keep this wonderful team together firing on all cylinders."
For those who disagree, the main alternative to the FT is The Times, which claims to have 49 per cent more business readers. "They do business very well," concedes Gowers, "but no, it is not a threat. The Times is a general-interest British newspaper devoting much space to celebrities and showbiz. Our elite audience allows us to charge premium advertising rates."
And despite the advertising recession of the past three years, Gowers points out, Pearson has demonstrated its faith by investing, for example, in the FT's profitable website, which has brought almost 80,000 subscribers paying up to £200.
Those are not the same as fullprice paper sales. "I'm not panicking at all," he says. "Our September figure was down two per cent year-on-year, but the velocity of the fall in our circulation has slowed almost to a standstill. The market, however, is shrinking much faster, and so our market share is actually increasing."
That is an optimistic way of looking at it. But Gowers insists that the "for sale" sign will not be raised. "Pearson has said privately, publicly and every other way that the FT will not be sold, and I happen to know that's 100 per cent meant. The FT is an asset of unbelievable value, and Pearson knows that very well."
(Evening Standard, October 27, 2004)
ANDREW Gowers may have saved £230 million last week. Much to his relief, a High Court judge threw out a claim by the City brokerage Collins Stewart Tullett that Gowers's newspaper, the Financial Times, could be liable for knocking a vast hole in its share price. It was, Gowers wants the world to know, "a completely trumped-up and nonsensical figure", that the judge dismissed as "unreasonable, irrational and circular … And now that figure has simply been wiped off the face of the Earth."
Gowers, 47, could use some good news at the moment. The FT has had a tough time since he became editor three years ago. It still faces a damaging libel action over allegations it reported by a former employee at the brokerage, James Middleweek - litigation Gowers dismisses as "vexatious, distracting and ultimately wrongheaded".
Worse, in Britain the paper's circulation is falling: full-price circulation is barely 100,000, and those figures are skewed by a healthy Saturday sale of 170,000, which suggests weekday sales are significantly lower than the headline figure. The paper's losses - £23 million last year, £32 million the year before - have prompted renewed speculation that Pearson, its owner, wants to sell.
Critics say that slippage is symptomatic of an erosion of the City's trust in the paper. It has been accused of moving too far from its traditional business focus ( Gowers's background is in foreign news) and of missing big stories as a result. The paper's editorial strategy has looked confused, just as The Times has boosted its own business coverage in direct competition. Eighteen months after adding a sports page, the FT has now dropped it to focus more narrowly on business. But Gowers dismisses suggestions that the FT has diversified away from its City focus: "Business lies at the heart of what we're about," he says, sitting in his office by Southwark Bridge. He has added a small-companies page, increased signposting "to show that the FT means business", and put in features such as a markets gossip column.
The paper also recently added Australia to its 23 global print sites, which leads Gowers to point out that 70 per cent of copies are sold abroad. "There may be an adjustment process required in some readers' minds in the UK. We are a global business newspaper aiming to provide the best coverage and analysis of business issues, and we are also a national business newspaper in the UK."
Nevertheless, some in the City say Gowers is more interested in quirky features than breaking stories. Not so, he retorts. "We've got so many exclusives everywhere. So confident are we about them that often we don't even put them on the front page."
Why, then, did they let The New York Times lead the way on Shell, surely a quintessential FT story? "Let's be honest, everybody flagellated themselves because The New York Times got to Shell first, but we were ahead on just about every other aspect of the story," he says.
So where are the FT's own big scoops? "Every edition is chockfull of exclusives other people are kicking themselves they don't have." Such as? "The Eliot Spitzer investigation into the US investment banks. M&S, we led the pack. WMD, the Libya-Pakistan connections ..." But WMD is hardly the sort of story the City is desperate for. "People running companies need to know how dangerous the world is, without spin and with real authority," he replies.
Yet some in the City still believe that the FT no longer speaks up for business the way it once did. Where are its great campaigns on red tape? Where is its robust defence of wealth creation? Gowers is unrepentant. "We have never been the cheeky newspaper campaigning for British small business. That's not part of our genetic makeup. I could draw you the dummy of a newspaper for the UK - it would be fearlessly anti-European, reflexively critical of any regulation or Government action, battling for smaller businessmen - but that's not the FT."
COULD that stance be partly because of the FT's friendliness towards the Government? "We are not beholden to any political party," Gowers insists. "Our reporting aims to be close to the Government to the extent that we want to learn what it is planning, and we do, generally, before anyone else. As for comment, we carry a wide range of views. We've been extremely critical of the coalition to invade Iraq. Gordon Brown is not always enormously pleased with what we say."
Still, critics argue that the FT no longer has the great voices that the City once so respected. Who are the great columnists at the paper whom the City now relies on? "I don't know where you're hearing that from, but it's an astonishing comment," says Gowers. "Martin Dickson in the Lombard column; Martin Wolf, who is the best writer on global markets in the world; John Kay, John Plender, a great forensic accountant; Philip Stephens, who can write about politics with real, reported authority ... I keep this wonderful team together firing on all cylinders."
For those who disagree, the main alternative to the FT is The Times, which claims to have 49 per cent more business readers. "They do business very well," concedes Gowers, "but no, it is not a threat. The Times is a general-interest British newspaper devoting much space to celebrities and showbiz. Our elite audience allows us to charge premium advertising rates."
And despite the advertising recession of the past three years, Gowers points out, Pearson has demonstrated its faith by investing, for example, in the FT's profitable website, which has brought almost 80,000 subscribers paying up to £200.
Those are not the same as fullprice paper sales. "I'm not panicking at all," he says. "Our September figure was down two per cent year-on-year, but the velocity of the fall in our circulation has slowed almost to a standstill. The market, however, is shrinking much faster, and so our market share is actually increasing."
That is an optimistic way of looking at it. But Gowers insists that the "for sale" sign will not be raised. "Pearson has said privately, publicly and every other way that the FT will not be sold, and I happen to know that's 100 per cent meant. The FT is an asset of unbelievable value, and Pearson knows that very well."
(Evening Standard, October 27, 2004)
<< Home